Dissertation Information for Michael B. Twidale NAME: - Michael B. Twidale
- (Alias) Michael Twidale - (Alias) Michael Bernard Twidale
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Computer Science
SCHOOL:
- Lancaster University (UK) (1989)
ADVISORS: - None COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - None
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected
Title: THE USE OF EXPLICIT INTERMEDIATE REPRESENTATIONS IN INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEMS
Abstract: In order to create a more accurate student model, an ITS must have useful and usable information about a student's thinking. Techniques to obtain such information are proposed and investigated. Form-filling, menu selection and annotation of plans are used to produce text that is readable as natural language (and so immediately comprehensible to the student who created it) but whose generation is constrained to avoid the huge variability of free-text explanations.
The technique is applicable in a variety of problem-solving domains. It avoids the problems of automatic plan recognition (complexity, slowness and unreliability) by requiring the student to explicitly state his plan and the mechanism by which he is to achieve each step in a solution. The mouse-based interface reduces the overhead for the student in proving this additional information. This extra information enables the diagnosis of certain errors involving the incorrect application of a rule to be almost trivial compared to a system that first has to infer which rule or rules has been applied to achieve the stated result. Besides aiding error diagnosis, explicit intermediate representations also support the students' problem-solving activity in a variety of ways.
The techniques were investigated by building EPIC--a prototype tutor for propositional logic--and by observing students' use of the system. The results also highlighted some of the issues to be addressed by a system capable of teaching at the various levels of a problem solving domain: the application of the basic rules, the use of plans involving these rules and the (heuristic) selection between possible plans. In particular, the importance of clarifying to the student the level at which an explanation was being addressed, and the potential of the use of the generated representations in subsequent remediation or advice are discussed.
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MPACT Scores for Michael B. Twidale A = 5
C = 11
A+C = 16
T = 5
G = 1
W = 5
TD = 5
TA = 0
calculated 2014-07-02 17:37:28
Advisors and Advisees Graph
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